Your views in 200 words or less

August 10, 2012 9:52 am

In these days of bitter and hyperbolic partisanship, the right has fallen victim to its own propaganda. But many of its most cherished myths cannot pass a smell test.

One current gospel is that President Obama is a radical socialist, if not an outright Marxist. Yet he began his term by appointing Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to steward the economy. Those two wild-eyed radicals are well-known as the Lenin and Stalin of Wall Street.

In truth, Obama, like all presidents, is in the pocket of corporate and military interests, and most progressives are dismayed by his conservative policies. That includes the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” born in right-wing think tanks and first championed by Mitt Romney.

Another fairy tale is that socialism is somehow inherently horrible. Again, the reality is different. We live in a blended socialistic and free market society, witness Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and health care, etc. The main arguments are simply about the ratios of that blend.

Feeds

Right on point…..A socialist would have nationalized the banks, and done single payer health care…….Half these people are throwing out this stuff and they don’t even know what it means…….But, it sounds scary to those too dumb to go look it up or read. Great letter and I agree. Obama is far more conservative than most people care to admit……But, reality is that trying to dismantle corporate interests in this country will take more than one …or two…or three Presidents….And, corporate America has more power than we care to admit….Good letter.

You and your ilk believe the country should move further along the socialist spectrum, correct? See above for the call to nationalize certain industries.

Sell it. How do make it work while protecting freedom? How do you make it sustainable? How do prevent us from furthering dependence on govt, creating a greater welfare state? How do you encourage innovation and achievement knowing self is the greatest motivator?

No true right-winger or conservative would promote such a scheme. Much of what I see coming from the republican party and the Trotskyites (aka neo-cons) comes from a philosophy opposed to the philosophy this country was founded on.

Re: “trying to dismantle corporate interests in this country will take more than one …or two…or three Presidents….And, corporate America has more power than we care to admit”

Our founding fathers understood human nature which is why they created a government with very limited powers. They knew what a central government controlling the country would lead to. If you want to get corporations and special interests out of government you need to downsize the government and bring it back to a consitutional form of government.

From Federalist Paper No. 45, by James Madison:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the
federal government are few and defined. Those which are to
remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
The former will be exercised principally on external
objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce;
with which last the power of taxation will, for the most
part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several
states will extend to all objects which, in the ordinary
course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and
properties of the people, and the internal order,
imporvement, and prosperity of the State.”

CT7, As is your way, you twisted what I said…Obama is NO socialist……Medicare and Social Security however, are…….And they have been around for a very long time and most people are quite fond of those programs….Your slings and arrows are soooo far off the mark here as to make me wonder what you are on….This writer is correct in his assessment of President Obama—You however have no idea what socialism is…or who or what is socialist…..Go learn something and come back—the market has rebounded, the banks are solvent and their is job growth………Please stop embarrassing yourself and think before you speak…….Quit beating up on people who know more than you do…….It’s kind of sad to watch…..

While I don’t feel that any president has full control over what happens in the stock market, I do feel it interesting that it is only “just…coincidence” when it involves good news and “0bummer’s fault” when it is not.

Barack Obama often gets slammed for his stewardship of the U.S. economy, but for stock investors, he’s been one of the best presidents since World War II. At 1,400, the S&P 500 on Friday was closing in on a four-year high and was up 74 percent since Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama took office. Not since Dwight Eisenhower’s first term has a president had such a strong run for their first term.”
CNBC-08/10/12

Dang! Dwight Eisenhower! Socialist? HA!

But in CT7’s world, everything bad that happens is Obama’s fault and everything good that happens is somebody else’s doing. Trying to have it both ways is often referred to in the grownup world as CHILDISH.

alindasue: Sorry to inform you that you missed the point and hit the mascot. The “coincidence” I referred to was CT7’s and my having the same explanation for the “rise” (not really, but that’s another subject) of the stock market. The Bamster wasn’t even in the discussion.

Klaatu51 – nice to see somebody citing to the Federalist Papers. Unfortunately, what Madison described isn’t what we have now. Clearly the balance of power has shifted from the states to the federal government, and that shift began in the midst of the Civil War, when the right to of the states to secede was effectively quashed. Then came the 17th Amendment which removed from the states (i.e., the states, not their citizenry) all effective representation in DC and also destroyed most of the theoretical bases for a bicameral congress.

This is all to be lamented, in my view, because there is now no effective check on federal power, and the banks and corporations have figured that out and used it to their collective advantage. “Screw the little people,” they say, “we have what we want. Why change it.”

CT7 – Where do you think the political power lies now? The oval office? Capital Hill? Give me a break!

Where did the money come from to bail out the banks 3 years ago? The U.S. Treasury? Where did the Treasury get it? The Fed.

If this “crisis” was caused by the banks, who obviously could not regulate themselves — and who engaged in their peccadilloes with the blessing (or at least the benign neglect) of the Fed, why did the US Treasury have to get involved?

National security? Please! Saving American jobs? Please!

The US Treasury got involved to protect the banks from failure, which failure would, in the long run, have had a highly beneficial cathartic effect on the economy. We would not still be waiting for the American economy to hit bottom. That would have happened long ago and we would now have a growing economy again.

And the US Treasury protected the banks because the banks are where the political power lies. Unelected, self-appointed — very democratic, or I should say republican. And before you say Bernanke was appointed, you better check what his job was before he went to the Fed.

Lee I have come to the conclusion that ct7 could not pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel of the boot. I have hammers in my tool box that are easier to educate and more open minded.

I know that time is precious and few people have time to spend watching a video on you-tube. This particular video might be worth the time for those who would like a better understating of how the Federal Reserve system was hatched.

Who cares about that if you are at the head of the line when they print more money? Those at the front end of the multiplier effect always benefit more than those at the back end, because newly minted money is always worth more than old money that has been in circulation for a while.

Watching CT7 and others invoke “communism” every time they get a chance reminds me of some clown on Facebook talking about “Communist” Chinese athletes.

Yeah…China is so communist that there is a private manufacturing plant on every corner knocking off American designs and selling them cheaper to the world. Very communistic, huh?

One of these days, it would be nice if half of these clowns would get an education – especially on their native language – but they’d be so disappointed to find out how the conservative sound machine has been lying to them….

CT7 – Conspiracy is a loaded and largely meaningless word, designed to restrict debate. All it does is draw an arbitrary line along the continuum of various kinds of associations and relationships, a line arbitrarily drawn by whomever does not like the association or relationship in question. I don’t have to be thinking conspiracy to claim that a group of bankers have rigged the system to their benefit. That was your idea.

And what exactly is the truth about the Federal Reserve? And whatever truth you think that is, who is your authority? Paul Krugman? John Maynard Keynes? They are, or were, Democrats.

You claim to have explained “the basics” to me. Where did you do that? I must have missed it. Better still, give me a name of an author and the title of whatever book or article you think is definitive on the matter of the Federal Reserve and I will not waste any more of your time.

Now, the “group of bankers” that rigged the system. Are we talking about a bunch of dead guys? Is that who you are implying “rigged” the system? And since then, every single administration must have been on board with a “rigged system”? Why would they do that if it went against the good of the nation? A few campaign dollars? Too far a stretch.

Keynes and Krugman. At least Keynes had some original thought, but his theories were made 80+ years ago. Both of them were more then just dems, they were progressives. Krugman is more of a political pundit then economist these days. Look the analysis of his latest book.

Ok, what is your theory on the Fed? What are you driving at? What is the solution to your perceived problem (that dem and repub admins/congress have overlooked!)?

“He argued that taxation represents coercive theft on a grand scale, and “a compulsory monopoly of force” prohibiting the more efficient voluntary procurement of defense and judicial services from competing suppliers”

I should have taken you advice… but not because of the “head explode” thing, that didn’t happen. No, the reason I don’t recommend anyone else waste an hour and a half on this is because it’s nothing but one tin hat conspiracy theory on top of another – all loosely and sloppily tied, predictably and rather anticlimactically, by a common thread of anti-semitism and old money/ Jewish conspiracy (love the tie-in to Bush and Skull and Bones – classic).

Hey SwoP, ever wonder about the name of the host? I mean, Ahijab… why does that sound like the host may have a highly negative outlook on all things western? Is this seriously some of your “course material? I mean, you’ve “been studying the FED for three years” now, is this what you’ve been “studying”?

And to think I had hoped for an intelligent discussion with you.

Did you ever consider that you may be cramming your head with ideas from material that may very well be being produced by folks with ties to… oh, I dunno’… Nazis? Or radical Islamists?

Good Lord, if this is what’s passing for legitimate reference material for use as a basis of any sort of mature conversation, God help us.

I nevertheless found Ahajib’s many tin hat uplinks and posts very illuminating… in a forehead slappinlgy hilarious way. I particularly enjoyed Ahijab’s many “Truther” tubes. But you forgot to post his/ her/ its brilliant follow-up piece (it’s much shorter and more to Ahijab’s main point):

Clam – Guess you don’t like what history teaches us if we look too closely. You understand that a veil is a metaphor, no?

Then the attack advances to “…Nazi’s radical Islamist’s…” I meant for this video to be something of a simple good place start for most to get a historical reference upon which to gain an understanding of the nature and source of the FED. Of course some of the ties regarding the assassination of Lincoln and Kennedy may be a stretch(who knows). However the historical connections bear more than a simple coincidence in all other regards. Look around at just the last meltdown in 2007-2008 and look at who the players are. Hint – the FED, Wall St. and Washington D.C.

Conc7- Give me a break the FED website. Like a website for OJ dedicated to finding Nicole Brown Simpson’s true killers. LOL, you are a simpleton.

Reg – Great reference Rothbard is spot on.

Other authors/writers of note on this and similar subjects include A.E. Hayek, Paul Krugman, Naomi Klein, Gerald Celente to name a few.

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